A Model for the Simple Thermal Comparator

Abstract

The development of a simple thermal comparator for distinguishing diamonds from other gemstones has recently been reported (Goldsmid and Goldsmid, 1979).* For this purpose, use is made of the fact that diamonds, in general, have thermal conductivities at ordinary temperatures that are higher than for any other known materials. It would, of course, be valuable if such an inexpensive instrument could be employed for the estimation of thermal conductivity of materials other than gemstones and, to this end, an improved version of the comparator has been tested with a number of standard substances. An attempt has been made to analyze the observations in terms of a theoretical model.